{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.thune.senate.gov/news/press-releases/thune-there-is-plenty-of-work-the-senate-can-do-if-democrats-decide-to-cooperate/", "Thune: There Is Plenty of Work the Senate Can Do If Democrats Decide to Cooperate", "2026-07-21", "2026", "2026-07", "Republican", "Senate", "SD", "John Thune", "T000250", "www.thune.senate.gov", "thune", "https://www.thune.senate.gov/news/press-releases/", "scraper", "Click here watch the video.\n\nWASHINGTON \u2014 U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) today spoke at a press conference with Senate Republican leadership:\n\nThune\u2019s remarks below (as delivered):\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s a busy week here in the United States Senate, and I would say that there is no shortage of opportunities for bipartisan legislating in the weeks ahead.\n\n\u201cThere are a number of things that we can do, one of which would be a market structure bill \u2013 that\u2019s something that\u2019s a candidate for consideration.\n\n\u201cThe Lindsey O. Graham sanctioning Russia legislation is also something that\u2019s being worked on, and is something I hope we can get the necessary support to get to the floor.\n\n\u201cAnd then, obviously, a defense authorization bill, which was voted down on the motion to proceed last week by the Democrats, is something that also normally is a bipartisan piece of legislation.\n\n\u201cBut none of those things get done if the Democrats continue their posture of trying to block even getting on legislation.\n\n\u201cAnd again, I used the defense authorization bill as an example of something that we\u2019ve done for 65 years in a row, which last week the Democrats decided \u2013 even though \u2026 a number of them had voted for the legislation when it came out of the Armed Services Committee \u2013 decided to block its consideration on the floor.\n\n\u201cSo that\u2019s something that ought to be able to get done.\n\n\u201cAnd then, obviously, the most important thing that we need to do is to fund the government.\n\n\u201cAnd on that front, Chair Susan Collins is working with Democrats on the Appropriations Committee to find a path forward to have a continuing resolution to keep the government funded to get past the November elections, so that we don\u2019t have the specter of a government shutdown \u2013 something that happened a couple of times this last year.\n\n\u201cAnd the disruption, the chaos that creates is just something that both sides ought to be willing to try and avoid.\n\n\u201cAnd so, I think it\u2019s going to be really important that we figure out a path forward to get a bipartisan agreement to fund the government that will keep government open and ensure that government employees are getting paid.\n\n\u201cAnd that is something that I intend to bring to the floor for a vote before the August break.\u201d", 1, "2026-07-22T07:34:13Z", "2026-07-22T07:35:16Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.thune.senate.gov/news/press-releases/thune-there-is-plenty-of-work-the-senate-can-do-if-democrats-decide-to-cooperate/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.7371529936790466, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}